A Survey Of Attitudes Towards Autonomous Learning Among Students In Vocational Institutes

The focus of education in today has shifted from merely information transmitting to students-oriented leaning. The personal overall qualities are the basic concern of educators. As a universal language, English learning is extremely important for Chinese students to meet the demands of opening-up China, in an era of globalization and communication with the outside world. To cultivate students' learning autonomy and to develop their ability to handle problems that exist outside school walls has become a must for English educators in China.Based on humanism, constructivism and cognitive theory, the author conducted an investigation on how non-English majors at vocational institutes would embrace autonomous learning. The thesis aims to find answers to the following questions:What the attitudes do non-English majors at vocational Institutes hold towards learner autonomy?Is there any gender difference in their attitudes towards learner autonomy?Is there any difference in attitudes towards leaner autonomy between students in different grades?Data are collected and analyzed with the help of SPSS 12.0, and the author comes to the following conclusions:(1) Students show positive attitudes towards learner autonomy. Most of them feel they should be responsible for their learning. Meanwhile they don't really understand how their responsibility should be reflected in controlling their learning. In addition, they are both teacher -dependent and teacher-independent. They lack confidence in their language learning and tend to be externally motivated.(2) Basically, there is no significant difference in their overall attitudes towards learner autonomy. Sophomores tend to show more responsible and initiative and teacher-dependent for grammar and vocabulary explanation in their learning.(3) No significant difference between male and female non-English major students could be seen in their overall attitudes towards learning autonomy.Considering the results of investigation, the author puts forward three suggestions, in the fifth chapter for students and teachers to foster learner autonomy.